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The MMO Information Station: Help for Prospective Players

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See, to me, coming from EQ (Ever Quest), and KS'ing (Kill Stealing) the idea of a mob being "tagged" by the first person to hit it was a great idea. I play a lot of LOTRO (Lord of the Rings Online), and I think this is how it still works in game. I never had an issue in that game with not having mobs. I had no idea we had moved beyond that and everyone involved just gets credit for helping.

For some reason, I still miss some things about EQ. I'm guessing I just don't remember it the way it really was. I did not play on a PvP server.

I am heavily considering this as well. The more gameplay videos I watch the more I like what I see. It isn't graphically intensive, but it seems to strike a really neat balance between hardcore/casual play that I havent seen before. The emphasis on gathering, crafting, building houses and such and grouping up make me think it's going to have a really good community as it goes.

I am heavily considering this as well. The more gameplay videos I watch the more I like what I see. It isn't graphically intensive, but it seems to strike a really neat balance between hardcore/casual play that I havent seen before. The emphasis on gathering, crafting, building houses and such and grouping up make me think it's going to have a really good community as it goes.

How do people like Albion so far? It looks like a less graphically intense version of ArcheAge.

How does housing work? Does everyone get their own, is there the awful housing grab/bots like in AA?

If, if Reagan played disco He'd shoot it to shit You can't disco in Jackboots

It may be worth mentioning that SWTOR's expansion has a story component that is not all that bad. I'd even call it good, but I am biased, because it had space ships and I got to make a level 60 sorcerer to kill everything with.

Right now you would get about ten hours out of it, if you just did that and ignored whatever else they happen to offer. They are promising further content updates down the line, so if you happened to wait a few years and then put in a marathon run right before the game shuts down you might be in for a lot of Star Wars.

The story is kinda what you might expect from a Kotor game only with less star maps. There is a plucky robot side kick and a magic space macguffin, of course, but there are no maps. Thus far. You also do not visit a desert planet or an ice planet. I'm sure some dev who really loves maps and ice planets and desert planets will get right on that as soon as nobody's looking, though.

It mostly made sense for my character to be involved in the plot because he is a Sorcerer. I have no idea why a character that isn't a Force-Murderer or an Imperial Agent would be particularly relevant to the story as it was presented to me, but I hear that there are some differences.

'Course, the game's engine is still a war crime and the ui is plainly a cry for help from the intern they chained to a desk in the basement. How much this affects your enjoyment of the proceedings will likely be determined by how much you love plucky robot sidekicks and not chasing after maps.

The UI still really gets to me. I wish I could just mod 90% of it out cause the game itself is still good ol' MMO fun. Also... ten hours for the expansion story, not including the story from the base game.

The UI still really gets to me. I wish I could just mod 90% of it out cause the game itself is still good ol' MMO fun. Also... ten hours for the expansion story, not including the story from the base game.

I'll say one nice thing about the SWTOR UI: the native interface editor is a really nice feature. Works pretty well, lets me save layouts and use them on alts even!

And then the keybinds can't be transferred between characters and I get upset again.

I grabbed Albion Online. It very much reminds me of UO. If a bit light. But I'm relatively early on and have yet to try anything major--mostly have been building up my crafting skills.

I'm not sure I see it doing overly well, at least not in North America. Most of the in game chatter is non-English at the moment.

Was is worth the $30 for the base founder pack? I'm... not sure yet. If you offered me a refund now I'd probably take it, but since that's not an option I'll have to give it some more of my time and that might increase my interest in it.

Couple things I was disappointed with:

- graphics are top simple. The screenshots/vids look great but once you're in game at full size, the lack of detail is more apparent.
- the UI is too big, clunky and needs customization options.
- questing is about as far on the drab end of the spectrum as it gets. One question giver tells you to kill 8 thieves. The next one tells you to kill 8 wizards. And you can only take one at a time.
- crafting is pretty basic, which I'm okay with early on, but if it doesn't get more interesting as I progress that's pretty crud.
- combat is very boring right now. Maybe one or two active abilities and auto attack for days. The videos are fast cuts for a reason--watching a fight for more than 3 seconds reveals how boring it is.

The magic engendered by early MMOs like UO and Everquest cannot be easily recaptured in any game, and I've long since given up on trying to relive a past MMO experience as they always fall flat under the weight of nostalgia. Not to mention we have had many mechanical and quality of life improvements since those days that should not be ignored. Even looking at it from the UO perspective, I didn't see it being a good heir to that particular kind of game honestly.

Albion might do well with the Asian market though, as an alternative to Korean and Japanese dominant titles perhaps? They aren't as sold on nostalgia or mind naked grinds as much. And mobile support is, I have to imagine, a big upside no matter the market.

Are there any MMOs out there right now that play like Warhammer Online did? I really loved the hell out of that game, playing as a Knight of the Blazing Sun is the most fun I've ever had in an MMO (and also was the most effective I've ever been in an MMO!).

Big update on Albion that changed the Destiny Board quite a bit. I went from still gaining decent experience crafting in Steel, to needing Tier 5+ in order to gain experience. I think I'll put this on pause for awhile..

Are there any MMOs out there right now that play like Warhammer Online did? I really loved the hell out of that game, playing as a Knight of the Blazing Sun is the most fun I've ever had in an MMO (and also was the most effective I've ever been in an MMO!).

Could you describe a little more about what you enjoyed in WAR? Nothing's a carbon copy, but there's probably a game out there depending on the elements you're looking for.

The magic engendered by early MMOs like UO and Everquest cannot be easily recaptured in any game, and I've long since given up on trying to relive a past MMO experience as they always fall flat under the weight of nostalgia. Not to mention we have had many mechanical and quality of life improvements since those days that should not be ignored. Even looking at it from the UO perspective, I didn't see it being a good heir to that particular kind of game honestly.

This is why I'm glad my first two MMO's were a Ragnarok Online hack and Guild Wars, the latter of which isn't really an MMO. Because the former just had so many godawful grinding bullshit mechanics and completely ruined all the joy I'd had from the original manga which was cancelled BECAUSE of RO that I despise the damn thing, and I'm still playing in the latter's universe, just... shinier, with nicer mechanics, I guess.

I played the hell out of WoW when I was younger and was burned out after the third expansion or so where all of my grinding for raids and gear suddenly meant nothing. I haven't been able to find an MMO to hold my interest since.

If, if Reagan played disco He'd shoot it to shit You can't disco in Jackboots

Well I mean the whole "Time to get better gear!" Thing is sort of part of the traditional MMO framework at this point. Comes with the territory of a higher level cap. Sounds like you quit during Cataclysm, which I quit for other reasons. Was just stupid and also skipped the fun expansion with Pandaria.

"Time to get better gear!" has always been around, but "Now my raid gear is useless!" hasn't. One of the things I miss from my time in EQ was that there was a substantial gap between raid and casual gear, enough that the raid gear from the previous expansion was good enough to start raiding in the next expansion (and sometimes remained BIS for several expansions). WoW always grated on me with how they felt it necessary to completely strip you of your old gear while you were leveling up for the next set of raids. Somehow the gear that I killed gods for is worse than what I get for killing 10 sn0w m00se?

"Time to get better gear!" has always been around, but "Now my raid gear is useless!" hasn't. One of the things I miss from my time in EQ was that there was a substantial gap between raid and casual gear, enough that the raid gear from the previous expansion was good enough to start raiding in the next expansion (and sometimes remained BIS for several expansions). WoW always grated on me with how they felt it necessary to completely strip you of your old gear while you were leveling up for the next set of raids. Somehow the gear that I killed gods for is worse than what I get for killing 10 sn0w m00se?

Flip side of that is the players that complain that they don't have any new gear to get because the old gear is still too good, especially if it lasts through expansions. Ultimately I would assume that was why the change was made to always have new and better gear to work towards.

Also makes sense from a business model standpoint, keep people working on something and therefore subbed.

There is a balance point of course, making sure that the gear you get for getting 10 bear asses doesn't immediately strip out the usefullness of the godly previous tier raid gear. That part DOES suck quite a bit.

"Time to get better gear!" has always been around, but "Now my raid gear is useless!" hasn't. One of the things I miss from my time in EQ was that there was a substantial gap between raid and casual gear, enough that the raid gear from the previous expansion was good enough to start raiding in the next expansion (and sometimes remained BIS for several expansions). WoW always grated on me with how they felt it necessary to completely strip you of your old gear while you were leveling up for the next set of raids. Somehow the gear that I killed gods for is worse than what I get for killing 10 sn0w m00se?

Flip side of that is the players that complain that they don't have any new gear to get because the old gear is still too good, especially if it lasts through expansions. Ultimately I would assume that was why the change was made to always have new and better gear to work towards.

Also makes sense from a business model standpoint, keep people working on something and therefore subbed.

There is a balance point of course, making sure that the gear you get for getting 10 bear asses doesn't immediately strip out the usefullness of the godly previous tier raid gear. That part DOES suck quite a bit.

Indeed and it is quite a balancing act. One I'm not certain any MMOs have successfully preformed. Honestly, having all your top tier gear get replaced almost immediately at the start of a new Xpac is something I just come to expect nowadays.

IMHO, the absolute worst thing is loading up that new expansion for the first time, killing the first Xpac Mob you see and then getting some random "junk" gear that is better than if not equal to the previous top-tier shit you currently have.

Are there any MMOs out there right now that play like Warhammer Online did? I really loved the hell out of that game, playing as a Knight of the Blazing Sun is the most fun I've ever had in an MMO (and also was the most effective I've ever been in an MMO!).

Could you describe a little more about what you enjoyed in WAR? Nothing's a carbon copy, but there's probably a game out there depending on the elements you're looking for.

I was a big fan of the fact that the PvP was both Instanced and in PvP Lakes in the overworld - castle sieges were the best, just a ton of fun. However, when GW2 implemented their castle sieges and PvP, I thought it would be the same but it really didn't feel the same at all.

As far as the class goes, it was a tank class with various auras that would buff your allies or debuff your enemies and if you were good you could sort of cycle through them and keep 3 or 4 buffs up at once. It was great because I like tanking but it can get kind of boring, but with the Knight of the Blazing Sun I was actively engaged beyond just making sure I kept aggro.

Blade and Soul will be going online on Monday, looks like there's a halfway-decent PA presence on the Poharan server. The base game of Guild Wars 2 is also F2P, and What A Nice Guild has been continuously active for a good long while now.

I have updated the thread for 2016! New addition is Blade & Soul which seems to be the hip new thing kids love.

If there are any errors or oversights then let me know.

Not exactly an error, but GW2 now has tanks and healers. Sort of. The raid that was introduced necessitated them. Still nothing like WoW tanks and healers, though. And those roles are not utilized in any other content, so you can still play the game as if they don't exist, as long as you're not raiding.

.....TBH GW2's endgame stuff is in a really weird place right now. But new players are still having an absolute blast. Whenever one comes to the subreddit to ooh and ahh over the game, we all just smile and say "Yes, young one! Stay innocent and pure! Do not tread down this dark path we have followed to endgame content! Wander forever in the glory of exploration and leveling!"

....not sure where I was going with that, except that when I read your summary I was like "Hmmm....this used to be GW2. It's not GW2 right now." But I don't know what I would say instead, other than "It's complicated".

Or maybe something like this?

Frequent Compliments: Emphasizes cooperation over competition and has a friendly community. Open world PvE is huge and the game gives you reasons to go out into the world over and over, using events rather than quests to drive the story. The Living Story provides regular content updates to the game. There is no gear treadmill. PvP provides a level playing field for new and experienced players alike.

Frequent Complaints: The World vs World siege warfare PvP that used to be a big draw has languished and is due for an overhaul, leaving this game mode all but dead at the moment.

Just a suggestion. Normally I wouldn't suggest moving WvW from the positive to the negative column due to temporary issues, but they've actually said they're overhauling it later this year so it'll be quite awhile before that game mode is worth playing again.